Ipoh

Ipoh takes its name from the ipoh tree, whose sap Orang Asli hunters used to poison darts, and was a riverside village of a few hundred people in the middle of the 19th century. What changed it was tin. The Kinta Valley held some of the richest alluvial deposits in the world, and from the 1880s Chinese miners, Hakka and Cantonese above all, arrived in large numbers to work them, followed by British companies with dredges that could turn over whole fields of gravel.

A fire destroyed much of the settlement in 1892, and the town was rebuilt in brick and stucco, then extended across the Kinta River into what is still called New Town. Tin fortunes paid for the civic buildings of the 1910s — the railway station, the town hall, the courts and the clubs — and for the mansions and clan clubhouses of the towkays who ran the mines. Ipoh replaced Taiping as the capital of Perak in 1937 and was granted city status in 1988.

The Japanese occupied the town from 1941 to 1945, and the post-war Emergency was fought hard in the surrounding valley. Tin prices then collapsed and the deposits ran down, the dredges stopped and the mines filled with water, leaving the pools that still dot the valley; young people left for Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and the old town emptied. Restoration of the shophouses from around 2010, the faster ETS train service and the city's reputation for food brought visitors back, and Ipoh now trades on the buildings the tin boom left behind.

Ipoh is one of Malaysia's most Chinese cities, and Cantonese rather than Hokkien is the language of its coffee shops, a legacy of the miners who came from Guangdong. Clan and district associations, the kongsi and the miners' clubs, were central to how the town organised itself, and some of their buildings survive as museums or are still in use. The Hakka community is large, Malay life centres on the mosques and the government quarters, and Perak's Indian population, much of it descended from estate workers, gives the city its Tamil temples and Thaipusam procession.

Food is the local pride and the main reason Malaysians visit. People argue about which shop makes the best bean sprout chicken or caramel custard with the seriousness found elsewhere about football, and a visit home usually involves bringing back biscuits: heong peng from Gunung Rapat, pomelos from Tambun, salted chicken from the old town.

The city is also unusually conscious of its own past. Heritage trails, restored shophouses, murals on the old walls and small privately run museums have turned the tin story into the way Ipoh presents itself. Manners are those of provincial Malaysia: modest dress in religious buildings, shoes left at the door, the right hand used for eating and giving, and a slower, more formal politeness than in Kuala Lumpur.

About 760,000 people live in the city council area, making it one of the larger cities in Malaysia, though it feels smaller because it is spread flat across the valley in low suburbs. The Chinese share of the population is high by national standards, and the city has long had an older age profile than the country as a whole, the result of decades of young people leaving for jobs elsewhere.

The economy no longer rests on tin. Government administration, as the state capital, together with healthcare, education, retail, light manufacturing and food processing carry most employment, and limestone quarrying continues in the hills. Tourism and the café trade have grown quickly. Cheap housing and the fast train have also made the city a retirement and commuting choice, and property prices have risen with it.

The day starts early and ends early. Coffee shops fill from six or seven with noodles, dim sum and white coffee; the middle of the day is hot and slow; and evenings belong to the hawker stalls and the parks, where people walk once the heat drops. Water supply, the state of the older shophouses and the pull of Kuala Lumpur on young workers are the recurring local concerns.

Ipoh's reputation is built on a handful of dishes done precisely. Nga choi kai — bean sprout chicken — is poached chicken with a heap of short, plump bean sprouts that locals credit to the mineral-rich water draining off the limestone, served with flat rice noodles in broth. Sar hor fun is the same silky noodle in a clear chicken and prawn soup; kai see hor fun is its shredded-chicken version. Salt-baked chicken, wrapped in paper and cooked in hot salt, is a takeaway staple.

Ipoh white coffee is the city's export: robusta beans roasted with palm-oil margarine instead of sugar and wheat, which gives a paler, less bitter brew, served with condensed milk in the old kopitiam alongside kaya toast and half-boiled eggs. Dim sum is a serious weekend habit, with trolleys working the larger restaurants from early morning, and the Cantonese influence shows in roast meats and claypot rice.

The city's sweets and snacks travel well, which is why people leave carrying boxes: heong peng, a flaky biscuit filled with malt and shallots, baked in Gunung Rapat; kaya puffs; and caramel custard sold from the old town cafés. Tambun pomelos, large and sweet, are sold from roadside stalls on the eastern edge of the city, and Ipoh's Indian and Malay kitchens add roti canai, nasi kandar and banana-leaf rice to the everyday round.